


tell me to just stay (say yes)

by ironicpatriot



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: All girls school, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - High School, Basketball Player Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups, Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups is Whipped, F/F, Musician Woozi, Student Council President Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups, They're All Gay, basically everyone in seventeen are female, but that comes later, captain! s.coups, hip hop unit are basketball players, i'm lowkey using this as a way to gush more about how perfect seungcheol is im sorry yall, performance unit are obvs in dance club, they're mostly musicians, vocal unit is both in choir and in a club for bands
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-09
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-20 05:29:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14888519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironicpatriot/pseuds/ironicpatriot
Summary: Jihoon has goals. Graduate high school, go to college and major in music, become a producer, and become successful. Solid plan. Except Choi Seungcheol has a knack for flushing that all down the toilet.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> SO. A lot of this is from experience, except for the love life part. It's all very heavily influenced by my high school life. Imma take this story as seriously as I can. Lol.

"You know if Seungcheol unnie hasn’t noticed you staring back then, she’s definitely going to notice now if you don’t start walking.” Seungkwan says brightly, as if her words didn’t fry Jihoon’s brain cells into making her move. They pass by the girl in question, her face bright with laughter as she wraps her arms around her friend’s neck and jokingly threatens to choke her.

She’s not wearing the proper uniform today, her skirt and polo with tie combo replaced with a loose shirt and basketball shorts. They have a competition coming soon and their coach decided to pull them out for certain afternoons to have them train until night time. They’ve been champions since Seungcheol’s joined the team, and they’re all determined to protect that title for as long as they can.

The fact that Jihoon knows all of this doesn’t mean anything. She flushes at the implication of her own thoughts. She’s such a sucker.

The canteen is loud today, shrieks and jokes; loud laughter bouncing from wall to wall. The light pink that they painted the school with was gaudy, and it itches to see it be Jihoon’s favorite color. Her hair, a pretty shade of peach that borders blonde, is a clear violation of the school’s hair policy, so she makes sure to duck her head and use her height to her advantage in order to hide behind a group of unassuming freshmen when a particularly strict teacher walks past her on her way to her table.

With her pastel pink lunchbag in hand, she walks to the farthest table from the opening of the canteen’s entrance, watching from afar as she spots Soonyoung throw chips at Seokmin’s hilariously serious face. She looks like she’s about to play volleyball with how her posture is set, and she executes an exaggerated lunge whenever she tries to catch one with her teeth. The freshmen from two tables over have been staring at the entire ordeal for thirty seconds and seem to be increasingly fascinated by the fact that they’re not stopping.

Jeonghan watches it all with a distinct air of boredom and a pinch of amusement, nonchalant as she slowly chews her way through her kimbap. Once she notices Jihoon and Seungkwan approach the table, she moves over a bit as if on auto pilot, not even bother to do much but nod her head in acknowledgement.

“Hey, have you read the chapter sir assigned us to read as homework?” Soonyoung says as she tries to aim, her tongue poking out as she concentrates.

The musician shakes her head, zipping open her lunchbox, “I skimmed. Who bothers to read the chapter anyway?” she scoffs, hiking her skirt up and tucking it between her legs, turning it into a makeshift pair of shorts, for maximum comfort, “He’s going to waste the whole period complaining about no one reading his assigned chapter and end up dismissing us with no material for the quiz again. Our tuition only goes to repainting the damn school, obviously.”

“How optimistic, unnie.” Minghao says wryly, taking a seat next to Seungkwan, who ends up practically squished against Seokmin.

“Ah, unnie’s real optimistic alright.” Seungkwan laughs, tearing her eyes away from the phone she has hidden in her lunchbox, her mouth still full of rice. “So optimistic that she was willing to risk it all earlier when she just stood next to Seungcheollie unnie’s table to stare at her and her perfect hair for five minutes. A true optimistic queen. Your faves would never.”

“Wig.” Soonyoung raises her fist in solidarity.

“Wig.” Seokmin echoes with solemnity before going back to her mission of catching all flying chips possible.

“I wasn’t __next__ to their table. I was at the entrance.” She replies with a hiss, her eyes slits as she points her plastic chopsticks threateningly at her dongsaeng, not that the person being threatened even batted an eyelash at the hostile girl. They’re all used to her by now. She contemplates throwing the chopsticks at her, but knows she’d only end up picking it off the floor and going to the restrooms to wash them. “There’s a difference, you brat.”

Jeonghan smirks, leaning forward to blink prettily at Jihoon, resting her cheek on her hand, “I don’t hear you denying the staring part.”

“Plus we all know that Seungcheol likes sitting near the entrance with her friends because it’s closest to the canteen food.” Jisoo adds, not usually one to join the teasing but the fact that she’s classmates with the person in question makes all of this almost too good to pass up, “Isn’t that right, Jihoonie?”

Jihoon flushes.

“Oh, you have a crush on Coups sunbae?” Chan perks up from the other table, where half the friend group is sitting. She stands and traipses over to them, draping herself over Soonyoung and opening her mouth waiting for fries. She gets fed whenever she does that, as the baby of the group, and she milks it for all it’s worth. “I was planning on joining the basketball club and unnie offered to help me get better. You can come with.”

“Coups?” she echoes in confusion.

Chan rolls her eyes, grabbing the growing pile of wayward chips Seokmin wasn’t able to catch and throwing it at Seokmin again. To Jihoon’s horror, she catches it and even shouts a celebratory whoop in victory. Soonyoung joins her in her celebration of catching it, even earning a distracted high five from Seungkwan, who would’ve been disgusted had she known what she was high fiving them for. They’re all so disgusting.

“Coups is what coach calls her because she’s captain and she’s probably a better motivator and planner than coach himself.” Chan boasts as if she were talking about her own damn achievements. “I think it’s a military term for something.”

Jihoon’s heart flutters despite herself. Seungcheol’s sweet, hard working, and talented to boot, and none of these qualities were helping her attempt at squashing her feelings and throwing it away to be blown into the wind. Can’t she have just been attracted to a douchebag like normal girls her age so that she can cry over it a bit and then get over it? Why’d she have to crush on the basketball team captain and student council president?

“She’s a goner.” Jisoo observes her dazed expression, chewing at her mozzarella stick in wonder.

“You can wait for Chan during practice and pretend you’re doing it because you’re going to tutor her after.” Jeonghan suggests. “That way you can watch her sweat in her basketball shorts __and__ have a chance at talking to her after too.”

"I don't know if that's believable," Seungkwan laughs, knowing her unnie was only good at things she was good at and/or interested in. Like music. "Her grades aren't exactly that best in the school."

"It's not like Coups sunbae knows that." Chan interjects.

Her eyebrows wiggle at Jihoon and Jihoon herself could feel her own brow twitch in irritation.

“Honestly,” Jisoo starts goodnaturedly, unsurprised when Jihoon’s glare shifted from the maknae to her and noticing how it intensifies with promise of violence, “If you wait too long to at least confess, she’ll probably end up with someone else, especially since it’ll be prom season for them soon. There are many boys who like flocking around pretty girls with pretty eyes and long lashes. Not to mention the amount of girls in this school who’d cut off an arm to date her too.”

“Oh, yeah,” Seokmin realizes, sounding almost sympathetic and sad for Jihoon. How humiliating. “Practically half the student body’s in love with her. You better start moving, unnie.”

Soonyoung wiggles excitedly, “Yo, give her flowers or something. Or write her a song and sing it to her in the middle of lunch. That’d be so cute. Seungcheol sunbae probably loves cute shit.”

“Fuck that, no.” she hisses, standing to threateningly wave her hand as if to slap her, “Keep your voice down if you want to live long enough to graduate.”

Seokmin automatically makes her voice raspy and gruff as if she didn’t hear a thing, sounding like a grandfather who had a bad smoking problem as if she were possessed by one, “Ah, honey, remember when we loved that cute shit. Oh, to be young again.”

“We can still do that cute shit, my darling, time does not matter.” Sooyoung automatically replies, pitching her voice high and obnoxiously rough. Jihoon feels insulted for every grandmother out there. “You still make me feel sixteen years old anyway, sweetheart.”

“It’s because you __are__ sixteen.”

“Honey, why are our grandchildren so disrespectful. Finish your food, Jasmine.”

“What did you call me? Yah!”

“Don’t worry, Jihoon-ah.” Junhui interrupts from the other table, somehow managing to listen in on the conversation despite five other conversations happen around her, “We’ll help you achieve a love life. She’ll definitely notice you if we help. I mean, there’s so many of us. How can she possibly ignore us?”

“The way you’re phrasing it, it sounds like we’re planning on cornering her.”

“Well, aren’t we?”

“I really have no idea what any of you are talking about, please stop talking.”

“Maybe if you trip in front of Seungcheol unnie, she’ll be able to catch you like in those dramas.” Seokmin says, eyes glittering at the prospect of such a romantic thought. As if romance never freaked her out and made her run in the opposite direction before. Jihoon rolls her eyes.

Jeonghan couldn’t help herself, “If you fall the right way and flash her, it’s a guarantee she’ll look at you.” A round of laughter echoes from their table, the usual racket that could be expected from a group that could take up more than two long tables.

Jihoon glowers at them, slouching further into her food as if hiding her face behind her lunchbox could protect her from the idiocy of her friends. “Shut up. It’s not like I __actually__ like her or anything. I just--admire here. A little.”

Seungkwan grins, completely ignoring the words of the person she was talking to. The audacity. “Cheer up, unnie. I’ve seen her stare at you when you demonstrate in music class. I’m sure if you asked her out, she’d at least give it a shot.”

“ _ _Everyone__ stares at Jihoon unnie when she has to demonstrate for the class. You kind of have to, dimwit.” Minghao snorts.

“She stares at unnie like how Seungkwan stares at the exchange student from the US.” Jeonghan says, sly yet pretending to be anything but.

Seungkwan squawks, “I do not!”

“Do any of you even __listen__  to what I say anymore?” Jihoon snarls, temper rising as the table heckles at her helpless crush. The chatter around her drowns her out, so she decides to let it go and pretend the people around her weren’t planning up schemes to get __her__ a love life. As if anyone of them had a love life for themselves. It’s not a bad thing to have a crush, especially one whom she had no plans of confessing to. Let her have her heart fluttering moments and let it just be that.

Crushes in the grand scheme of things are essentially harmless. It’s an all girls school after all, and those who either have pixie cuts or play sports are preyed upon by the large majority. This wouldn’t have been the case if the student body hadn’t been so deprived of male interaction. It’s not a huge loss in Jihoon’s opinion, but she never was that straight in the first place.

Choi Seungcheol was just the bullet to the gun that was pointed straight at Jihoon’s illusion of being straight.

No biggie, right? Jihoon rubs at her tired eyes. Right.


	2. Observations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst and a lot of Seungcheol admiring ahead. Also, lots of time skips.

Jihoon takes a while to go to school most mornings. She’s sluggish and tired like every other high school student experiencing the usual routine of a slow academic death, but Jihoon’s always had this weight around her chest. It couples nicely with an almost vibrating, sweaty uneasiness that never really leaves. It’s why she won’t let anyone else touch her.

She wakes up--she hasn’t bothered with an alarm since middle school, she used to be really hard to wake up--and blinks at the cracks on her ceiling. She’d paint on it, if she were any taller and had the energy to do so. Instead, she opens her eyes every morning to stare at it. Works at breathing. Blinking. Existing. It’s gotten harder the older she gets.

This is probably the most peaceful moment in her everyday life. She appreciates it.

She used to have to be dragged out of the bed every morning, back when her father was alive.

He’d flick the lights open, shove the curtains out of the way even when the sun wasn’t up yet, and make a dramatic show of waking her up. “Princess!” he shouted back then, petting at her head and poking at her cheek. Her mother would joke about him waking the so-called beast, and he’d laugh at her and say, so sweetly in his gruff voice, “She’s no beast. My princess just needs a bit of love every morning.” She’d wait until he would finally pepper her face with kisses before opening her eyes.

Now, she wakes up alone. She’d call it ironic, how life likes snuffing out those who had so much of it like how flames die out when they collide in a forest fire. Dying slowly, with beeping machines and no family around him in his final moments, Jihoon cried alone and screamed alone for a long time in her room after that, thinking if she had just thought to visit that day, or had less resentment for her sick, absent father. If she had just shown an ounce of the love she felt for her father before it was too late.

She wonders if her mother heard her in those long moments of agonizing loneliness and regret; but if she did, she never said anything about it. She can’t blame her though. If she felt like dying, it wouldn’t compare to what her mother must have been going through.

Stretching feels nice, and she smacks her lips in content. Reaching for her cellphone to check the time, she learns that it’s six in the morning. Her body clock seems to be working just fine, despite sleeping three hours. It’s a bad habit, but insomnia likes to haunt her with dark, leaking thoughts, and all she has for company is her old, secondhand electric piano and blank music sheets. In the comfort of her solitude, she writes in pitches and duration, writing about how she yearns for growing up, about drifting aimlessly, and reaching for someone that is just out of her reach. It digs at the hole in her chest, and maybe she feels another inch of the pain give way to emptiness. Makes her feel lighter. Not better, but lighter. It’s the only kind of peace she knows she can attain through practice and relentless work.

Her morning routine could probably be considered lackluster to many, especially Seungkwan--who has, more than once, said that she’d love to offer a skin routine worth bragging to Jihoon. She refused, knowing she’d never bother and that she’d never be able to truly afford it without getting a part time job. She __has__ been looking for a job, but the money would never go to something she wants. Maybe she’d consider buying materials, maybe a guitar--so she could practice on that instead of borrowing the music room’s guitar every time, which she always needs to tune anyway--but she knows she’d never follow through with buying something for herself. She’d buy something for her baby sister first, ice cream maybe, or help her mom by buying the groceries with her own money. Now that she thinks about it, it wouldn't be a bad idea.

Jihoon sets to work on washing herself up, towel drying a bit roughly before staring in the mirror and deciding a headband would have to do in pulling her hair back from her face. The headband had white polka dots. She probably looks like a kid, but she’s stopped caring about that ever since she stopped growing. The wet tendrils still try sticking to her face, dampening her neck and shoulders, but she decides it’s fine. Headbands are all about commitment, especially when your hair’s still wet. She’s gonna have to keep it on all day until she gets home.

When she pulls her uniform on, she stares a bit longer at her reflection. Not even just seeing or __looking__ at anything on her face. She gets like this sometimes, and she’s aware of it for the most part, but she gets. Gets stuck in this limbo, like she was a video on pause, and everything blurs around the edges when she gets like this. It feels like her brain’s gone static. That’s what she says to the others too, when she gets like this and her friends asked about it. Her friends have gotten used to it, knows enough to just gently nudge her out of the middle of the hallway or tap her to let her know where she is, calmly ushering her out of other people’s way. “Static,” she explains, gesturing helplessly at her head, feeling hot with shame and it feels like she has to force the word out. Her friends nod, knows all about it by now, and they all know not to coddle her or touch her.

It’s probably why she loves rain so much. Though, only when she’s dry and indoors. Angry rainfall always sounds like what she feels in her head. Like loud, distant white noise.

"I'm leaving!” she shouts into the quiet house, knowing her baby sister was already probably awake and getting ready, and that her mom was already out for work. Her stomach growls for food, but she ignores it. She’s packed a simple lunch for herself--two sandwiches and a cheap juice box--and had already fixed one for her sister too, and if she buys some milk for recess then she’s set for the entire day.

Her trek to the school doesn’t take long, especially with how early it still it. Classes start at eight, and it’s still about a quarter till seven. Taking her time, she trudges up the hill to the school, her breath coming out in puffs. When she gets there, she stops in her tracks and basically bolts behind a tree.

Choi Seungcheol. She comes in with the tall girl with the long brown hair and dimples, and the one always wearing a hoodie and headphones. Jihoon’s sure the headphones aren’t allowed, they’re not even allowed to bring phones, but somehow she gets away with it by saying it’s connected to her watch. Maybe being close friends with the student council president helps her case.

Seungcheol’s bright, even in the really early morning. Her hair’s up in a ponytail that swings in wavy curls, her dark fringe cover her forehead but letting her brows peak just a little bit through. Her long eyelashes flutter a bit as she laughs along to what her friends say, and she speeds up a little to open the door for her friends. Her friends don’t seem to notice, and it might be a normal insignificant thing, but Jihoon’s heart pounds just a little bit louder when she witnesses it. Her palm rests on the bark of the tree she’s hiding behind and she can’t help but rest the side of her head against it too. Her blood’s rushing in her ears. It’s too early to feel like passing out in a puddle like this.

Five minutes pass. Jihoon tries to pull herself together before the other students start piling in, so she takes that damn breath she’s been holding the entire time she stared at the upperclassman in silence and decides that she has no patience or time to keep thinking about how that small gesture Seungcheol slap her in the face with fondness and admiration.

“Wake up.” she mumbles to herself. It’s a phrase she’s said to herself time and time again, and it feels strange to say it in a situation like this--something about how mundane it is to have a crush that pulled the rug from under you instead of feeling like you wanted to disappear was weird.

 

* * *

 

Trudging through the halls to her locker, she clutches at her backpack straps as she sees Seungcheol talking in front of her locker to a teacher. Jihoon keeps walking, but she can’t help but glance and listen in a bit to what was going on.

She seems to be offering to carry what the scrawny new teacher was struggling to keep from falling from his hands, a box full of his things; a bunch of books and notebooks, piles of paper and a ruler poking out. He seems hellbent on refusing her offer, but her smile turns a hint firmer, and before he seems to understand what’s happening, she already seems to have all of his things in hand and is chatting him up about his class.

Jihoon smiles quietly at the look of utter bewilderment on the guy’s face, watching him fidget. She knows the feeling. He seems just as awestruck and confused as her. She feels her grin grow and tries to hide it by practically shoving her face into her locker. When Soonyoung comes to get her things from their shared locker, she finds her like that. Face in a locke and on her tiptoes.

“Yah, what are you doing?” she says as she comes closer, squinting in confusion. Her messy bun is messier than usual and it’s the first thing Jihoon notices when she jumps as if shocked and whirls around to stare at who disturbed her quest to shove her own body into a locker. Soonyoung stares at her like she’s gone insane and it takes a bit for Jihoon to realize she’s still kind of grinning like a lovesick fool. Without context, though, she __does__ look a bit crazy. She tries to tamp it down and tries for a glare. Insultingly, it calms Soonyoung down.

“None of your business.” she says belatedly.

Soonyoung doesn’t even bother replying, leaning over to grab her books and binder before shoving them all in her backpack. “Sure, it isn’t. Let’s go to class before you decide to shove yourself into your own bag too.” she snickers and makes a show of eyeing her pastel pink bag, “You’d probably fit.”

“ _ _What did you just say.”__

“Yah--yah, NO HAIR PULLING! I’ve lost enough hair to stress as it is!”

* * *

 

Lunch time has Jihoon wandering to the canteen to eat with her friends again. There was a time she just ate alone, but she doesn’t try to dwell too long on it. She hasn’t been truly __alone__ in school for a long time, and she’s as thankful as she is confused by it. She’s not exactly the best to be around, although she __can__ say that the others think she’s funny, in a scary way. It’s nice. Like a branding, one where it has undertones of belonging, like she’s one of them and it’s gonna stay that way for a long time. Jihoon doesn’t like to call it permanent, even if the security of it felt like that, but she feels like nothing in this world was permanent. If her father’s sunshine wasn’t permanent, why should anything else be? Right?

She almost to the canteen when she’s struck by the thought that she forgot her wallet in her bag because she was supposed to buy herself milk. Spinning around to run back to her classroom, she skids to a halt before entering a hallway, hearing a voice that she hates to say gives her the warmest feeling down in her stomach.

There’s another voice too, high-pitched and quiet. Half air, Jihoon notes. She sounds like a soprano, sounds nervous and shaky like how Jihoon’s felt for year but has learned how to mask.

“Sunbae,” the voice flutters in the air, unsure, and Jihoon almost feels bad for listening in, but she can’t seem to move. “Sunbae, please accept my gift.”

There’s a crinkling sound, and for a beat all Jihoon could hear was her own breathing. God, she hopes they can’t hear her and her ugly yet unintentional impression of Darth Vader.

“I’ve liked you for a long time, sunbae.” the girl says, voice cracking. “Please consider my feelings.”

Jihoon takes a peak from the corner and sees Seungcheol hesitating, her hand hovering over the cute, pink wrapping of the gift. She looks so unsure for someone who should be used to gifts and confessions by now. “I’m sorry.” she says gently in reply.

“We--uh, we don’t need to be anything. I just want to become closer to you.” the girl stutters out, sounding embarrassed and humiliated. “Please take the gift. It really is for you.”

“Okay,” Seungcheol says after a long breath, “I’d love to be friends, Yerim-ah. I hope you don’t take it to heart, but I’m not looking for a relationship. I’m too busy, and I’m not interested. I’m sorry.” Her hands, elegant and on the pale side, take a hold of the gift and she holds it almost reverently, like it was fragile and important.

Yerim seems to be accepting of this, like she knew it was coming, but she glows as she sees Seungcheol take the gift. “It’s okay, sunbae.”

“Thank you, though.” Seungcheol says so sincerely, so gently, that Jihoon kind of feels like crying. She sounds like she cares so much, and Jihoon doesn’t want to know how that’s possible. “I’m not sure if I’m worth the attention, but thank you for the gift and thank you for liking me.”

Yerim grins, and Jihoon notes how cute the girl actually is when she isn’t shaking like a leaf, but there’s a hint of sadness in her posture. A slump in her shoulders. “Can I have a hug?” she asks, sounding so hopeful and innocent, Jihoon doubted Seungcheol would reject anyone sounding like that, “Please?”

Seungcheol doesn’t even seem to hesitate. “C’mere.” she says, a smile stretching her pretty red lips. The smaller girl inches into her arms and soon they stand like that, with Seungcheol’s hand cradling and caressing her head, and her other arm wrapped around the girl’s shoulders. She looks big this way, a commandeering figure softened by the gesture of a hug; protective and warm and loving. Jihoon wonders how it must feel like to be hugged like that. Judging by the way the younger girl sags and goes boneless against the hug, it’s probably a hell of a good one.

Jihoon flees from the scene before the envy consumes her and makes her do something stupid, like going out there to ask a hug for herself.

* * *

 

She can’t believe she got dragged here against her will. She eyes the entrance, tempted by the freedom it promises.

“Don’t even think about it.” Seungkwan hisses, claws effectively lodging themselves into the flesh of Jihoon’s arm. She has manicures regularly with long pastel nails to show for it. Jihoon mourns for her pale, easily bruised skin. Going limp in defeat, she lets herself be dragged.

They enter the gym, hearing the cacophony of sneakers squeaking furiously and instructions being yelled out. When Chan spots them from the middle of the court, she waves her arms furiously before giving them a big thumbs up. Jihoon’s gotta admit, the kid’s cute when she was minding her own business.

Soonyoung drags the both of them to the bleachers, far enough away from possible flying balls but close enough to see the faces of each member of the basketball team and those trying out to join.

Jihoon can see the flush of blood in Seungcheol’s cheeks and the way her fringe has been pushed up and ruffled slightly, showing her a sliver of forehead that has her heart racing. This is it. She’s going to have heart attack right in the middle of the gym and she’s never going to be able to become a producer. Death by attractive sweaty girls.

When the coach whistles, the sound so sharp and startling that it makes both Seungkwan __and__ Jihoon jump in surprise. It has an automatic effect of all the members gathering to him. She watches him make very aggressive gestures with an intense rapid fire set of words, none of which makes sense to her, but all the other people seem to understand. Even Chan looked like she knew what was going on. Jihoon can’t help but feel a little bit proud. She looks like she’s practiced enough to have a good spot in the team.

The coach shouts a dismissal and a few final reminders, and Seungcheol automatically tacks some reminders of her own, sounding like personal ones for specific members. She then comes up to talk to the coach herself, almost on autopilot, and looks to be discussing a few serious topics to him.

Chan looks at where they’re sitting in the bleachers and decides to run towards them whilst swinging her towel around wildly. “Hey, guys!” she says, breathless and sweaty.

“You stink.” Jihoon says, pushing at her when she decides that was her cue to try and crowd into Jihoon’s space and hug her. She shoves at her forehead in disgust, “Take a shower or I’ll scrub you up myself and end up scraping off skin.”

“Unnie, gross.” she replies, finally stepping away to calm down and wipe at her face with her towel. “I was doing good, right?”

“We wouldn’t know.” Seungkwan says primly.

Jihoon snorts, “I saw you staring at one of the players, you at least seem interested.”

“Oh, you want to talk about staring at players, unnie?”

“Speaking of,” Chan interjects, grinning at Jihoon’s red and scowling face, “Gonna talk to her, unnie?”

“I honestly have nothing to say to her, I don’t know why Seungkwan thought this was a good idea.”

Seungkwan groans, looking like she wanted to grab at her own hair in frustration. She would never though, her hair is in perfect wavy curls and she styles it too particularly to risk ruining it. She settles for pinching at her nose bridge. “I told you. Tell her you have something to say, drag her to a quiet corner in the gym, and confess your feelings.”

Aha, Jihoon would rather __die__ than do that, thanks. “No.”

“Look, you’ve been looking especially infatuated lately and you're pining so hard, it's giving me acne.” Seungkwan hisses, and with Chan nodding beside her, Jihoon feels a little cornered. “I will not have you messing with my life like this with your relationship drama. Talk to her, confess your feelings. The results may vary, but at least you did something about it. Okay?”

Jihoon takes a second to just consider it, deciding to slowly nod. Before she understands what’s happening, she’s being shoved in the direction Seungcheol’s in and when Chan calls her name, she glances at the peach haired girl with glimmering recognition in her eyes.

Seungcheol jogs towards her--God, Jihoon wants to vomit a bit, would it be weird if she bolted out of the gym suddenly--and she’s not even breathing that heavily from all the exercise she did with training for basketball. She doesn’t smell bad either, she just smells warm and like some kind of faint fruity scent. How is she real?

“Did your moderator tell you already?” Seungcheol says, her smile confused but still a smile. Jihoon’s brain must be short circuiting. Moderator what? Who? “The plans aren’t sure yet, but maybe it is a good idea to go straight into planning before getting approval.”

“Uh.”

“Ah, I guess he didn’t give you all the details.” Seungcheol continues, probably noticing how uncomfortable and confused she was. Her hand comes up to rub at her neck, some kind of gesture that showed how unsure Seungcheol was even when it never truly showed in her face or voice, “The music club is being proposed to perform in the upcoming fair as the main event, and your moderator just kind of told me that you’re going to be in charge of it and that I should just talk to you. I hope that’s okay.”

Jihoon prides herself in this moment, because her brain reboots quicker than expected and the moment the older girl is finished with her sentence, she’s already replying. “Ah, yeah. Sure. It’s fine. I just need to know the theme and how long we’re allowed to perform. I’ll have to arrange something.”

Seungcheol grins again, those flashes of sunlight that makes Jihoon feel warm all over again. God, she feels like she’s been thrown under the sun in the early morning, like a cat with a thing for lying in that little spot between the curtains where they can sunbathe in peace. “That’s great. I’m going to have to reserve some of your time during lunch breaks to plan. Is that okay?”

“I’ll check my very busy schedule.” Jihoon deadpans, knowing Seungkwan’s listening in and she’s probably snickering from the bleachers right now, relaying everything to the groupchat. The older girl laughs at that and it sounds so carefree. Jihoon is really close to pinching herself.

“You do that.” Seungcheol says, amused. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Jihoon allows a small smile at that, reserved. She never liked her own smile, it never felt natural before, but this situation made her feel slightly helpless to her own emotions. Especially since Seungcheol’s own smile was infectious. “Yeah.” she replies, her voice a bit quiet, like the moment was too precious _not_ to be treated gently, “Yeah, okay.”


End file.
